losing by winning

Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

@csessums — ‘Metrics are great; however, don’t forget the law(s) – Goodhart’s Law: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure,” & Campbell’s Law: The more a metric is used, the more likely it is to “corrupt the process it is intended to monitor.”’

“We are living in a time of tremendous social change and contention. Within the West, power is being negotiated around issues of climate change, migration, race and ethnicity, and gender and gender identity, amongst many other issues. At a geopolitical level, traditional alliances are beginning to realign and change in unexpected ways, and we should expect the EU and China’s visions of the internet in particular to have a stronger hold on global discourse about internet governance. It’s not enough to adapt for a digital environment; we have to understand the politics and societal dynamics behind these changes …

The question I leave for you today is this: What are the new institutions of journalism, and how are they adapting for the actual dynamics of the networked world, where communities of affiliation are not simply separating into echo chambers but actively acting in contention with each other? How will we in journalism operate in an environment of dissensus? What can we do to shape our media environments of today?”

‘In his book The Big Sort (subtitled “Why the clustering of like-minded America is tearing us apart”), Bill Bishop put it simply: “Mixed company moderates; like-minded company polarizes. Heterogeneous communities restrain group excesses; homogeneous communities march toward the extremes.”’

“Brexit has shown us that you can lose by winning. Because when you have created an angry and committed group of supporters, you create an equally angry and committed opposition. And there’s no one to fight for the moderate solutions that would be better for everyone.”

“Most often, change efforts fail because they seek to overpower rather than attract. Semmelweis sent angry letters to his critics, rather than address their concerns. Many of the Occupy activists were shrill and vulgar. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are often known for their arrogance as much as for their technical prowess.

The problem is that fantasies about overpowering your foes are much more romantic than doing the hard work of building traction in small groups and then painstakingly linking them together through forging a sense of shared purpose. Yet if you want to truly change the world, or even just your little corner of it, that’s what you need to do.” —Greg Satell